


now i see the long and short of it and i can make it last

by hypotheticalfanfic



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Post-Canon, no longer canon after the wedding episode sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2020-10-17 08:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20617661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypotheticalfanfic/pseuds/hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: It could be a sad story, but it wasn't.(shows up a million years late with the first fic in a year and no coffee, sorry)





	1. Chapter 1

The nameday for Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo IV was as grand and gaudy as the Lady Vex’ahlia could make it. Gold and white streamers adorned every inch of every piece of white stone in Whitestone, and her own sigil, the bear’s head framed by the de Rolo sun, stood stamped on every creamy parchment invitation, and every noble - with especial attention to anyone who ever treated the Lady Vex with anything other than fealty - was cordially invited and shuttled into the Temple of Pelor. They were not, however, seated in the front two rows. Those, with cloth-of-gold cushions, were reserved.

Some of these nobles were new, or from elsewhere, and so seemed to gawk at the sight of the clambering party of gods-only-know - was that a _goliath_? He was huge, grey-skinned and heavily tattooed, and bearded; unarmed, unarmored, but looking as likely to either bolt or tear the ceiling down at any moment. To one side of him sat a trio of gnomes, one white-haired and scarred (although, the snootiest would concede, at least decked in the robes of Sarenrae) and the other dark-haired and handsome, with touches of grey in the mustache he wore. To his side sat the third gnome, younger, also dark of hair, and eye-catching. Not pretty, exactly, but a striking face that bore a sardonic smile and a few scars of its own. Beside her sat an aged human woman and a strop of youths, all attractive, well-dressed, with the bearing of nobility. They wore fine red-and-bronze robes, spoke with Emon accents, and the woman, though scarred, looked an awful lot like the portraits of the former royal family that sometimes popped up here and there. The eldest boy, dark-haired and short, snuck furtive glances at the gnome girl, and she ever so slightly glanced back when no one was looking.

To their side, another row, even stranger than the last. Even the newest of nobles would recognize the dark-skinned man in flamboyant purple and gold: the shopkeeper, Gilmore, glorious and laughing. Another man, dark and handsome, scarred and wearing formal leather armor, sat beside him, watchful eyes and constant vigilance. To his side, a handsome blonde man in spotless robes, and to his side….a construct? Here, in the Temple of Pelor? Its huge bulk seemed out of place at best, and although it was clearly skillfully made, rumbles of displeasure from the back could be heard over the band of musicians led by a half-orc violinist in a very fine hat. Beside the blonde man, leaned forward to chat across the aisle to the gnomes, was a druid woman, ageless in the way druids become eventually. She was lovely, self-assured even with a raven perched on her shoulder, and paid no mind to the staring.

The front row, then, looked at first to be solely for blood relations: an elven couple, the man dark-haired and severe, the woman blonde and smiling, and a youthful elf girl who looked quite a bit like the Lady Vex. However, next to them was a passel of beautiful women and their strange companions (the Lady Vex does have a sense of humor, after all). A tall golden-haired woman in deep blue robes, elegant braids, clasped hands with a halfling who sported so much brawn as to be nearly off-putting. Beside them, a human man with two different-colored eyes who, if he wasn’t scarred and scowling, would be quite handsome. His companion was stunning, unreservedly, although a pregnant tiefling in the Temple of Pelor seems almost a sacrilege. The child perched on the sliver of her lap, human in form but tinted red skin, laughed, plucking at tiny arcane butterflies their mother dangled above them.

And then, upon the stage, high-backed chairs: the Lady Cassandra, who beamed in a way no Whitestone resident had seen before. An empty chair, with a single black feather placed upon it as if to reserve it for someone running behind. A bear decked in gold and ribbons breathed heavily. And, too, the head priests of Pelor, as was proper, and the Raven Queen. At the sight of the black-shrouded, masked person, a gasp ruffled through the back of the room.

The ceremony was long, just a shade longer than propriety demanded, thanks to the addition of a speech and prayer by the Raven Queen’s representative. The elven woman, ageless and beautiful in her silver-star necklace, spoke of sacrifice and honor, but dropped in the occasional unexpected joke, and her prayer was heartfelt enough to bring a quickly-hidden tear to the Lady Vex. The babe didn’t much care for the holy water on his forehead, but his squalls made the first two rows laugh, and the party and feast that followed remained in many a memory for ages to come.

* * *

The nameday for Eleonora Juniper Cassandra and Angelica Larkspur Elaina de Rolo was…louder? Louder. Smaller, a bit, but over the noise as a three-year-old boy showed everyone his somersaulting skills, an aging Trinket snored heavily, and a clutch of those same odd wanderers, heroes of legend and scruffy miscreants alike, shouted and applauded, well, the twins’ squalling squabbles could barely be heard.

And two years later, they clapped and cheered in dueling shouts while their older brother tried to be solemn, holding steady the head of Constantine Alder Vax’ildan de Rolo while the Raven Queen’s priestess said her prayers as quickly as possible.

That babe, grim and quiet as he would always be, sat wide-eyed between the whispering twins another three years later, as the last of the troupe, Lyonette Eglantine Vessar de Rolo, slept soundlessly while being anointed. The eight-year-old heir to Whitestone peeked up for only a few moments during her ceremony, absorbed in the latest book of adventures, personally autographed by one of his many, many honorary uncles - the one with the mechanical manservant, his favorite.

* * *

And then they were all together, the de Rolo family again. Freddie and Nora and Angie and Connie and Net, running and jumping and chasing - Connie less than the rest, the twins most of all - through the halls of Whitestone. A bear kept them herded near enough together that the people of the city rarely saw any one of them alone. And sprawled in the middle, sometimes, when not on the edges, stood their parents. The Lord of Whitestone, as his hair grew a bit thinner, and the Lady, as, slower, her hair sparked silver in the sun. Percy gnawed the scars on the insides of his cheeks while he worked, and fiddled with clock parts the size of himself and smaller than a fingernail with equal ease, and taught his children the secret passages he’d used to traverse the castle with his own siblings. Vex brushed Trinket’s fur, and slept some nights curled around one or more of her children under the Sun Tree, and prayed to half a dozen gods when the time seemed right.

The Lady Cassandra, too, aged, the white streak in her hair widening each year. But the litter of small quarter-elves running and jumping and shouting, the way she once had, seemed to give her a new lightness. Percy, when Vex asked once, agreed: she was more like she’d been when they were children. Still serious, still thoughtful - Connie got on best with Auntie Cass - but with a bent toward using that brain to create mischief, to cause a ruckus, to create a spectacle and pretend she’d never even heard of such a thing.

* * *

Other events transpired, over the years. More than one dangerous beast threatened the city, and the Grey Hunt grew powerful. It was the place young people went when they had something to prove, especially when their rough edges didn’t quite snap into place with their fellow citizens. The Lady Vex was tough as nails, and had forgotten more about tracking than they’d ever learn, but she was funny, too, and fair-minded, and a devastating ally in a tough corner. Her bear, even as its fur grew silver, wasn’t anything to laugh at either.

The great clock started slow. Percy had to invent half of it, and send for books and manuscripts in half a hundred languages, and invite reclusive geniuses he first had to convince of his own ability, seriousness, and, for some, existence. Percy kept an eye on the Flintlocks (he finally, finally convinced his sister to change the name as a birthday present), and once in a while they’d be surprised by the appearance of a thin, aging man in his house slippers, who would proceed to make shots none of them had ever even seen before as casually as he smoked his pipe.

The Lady Cassandra oversaw the library’s construction, and rebuilt the schools, and was still the acknowledged seat of real power in the city, but over the years, her iron will was bent more and more to finding artisans and arcane adepts and enticing them to relocate to Whitestone. She and her brother argued constantly, but always agreed to pay whatever was needed to give the city the best they could find.

And the children grew, and ran, and yelled.

Freddie joined the Flintlocks, then the Pale Guard, and took pains not to call Captain Howarth by his first name when anyone was around. He performed well enough, but soon took off to travel with a band of misfits he’d pulled from all over the city. In his letters home, Freddie called his friends the Six-Point Star, only a little self-consciously, and Percy couldn’t at first decide whether to laugh or to cry. “Could be worse, darling,” Vex said, reading over his shoulder. “We were the SHITs for a good long while, after all.”

At her Auntie Cass’s side, Nora joined the Chamber the day she came of age. She spent ten years as the Curator of Fortune’s Bounty, charming ambassadors and weaving trade agreements with the deftest of hands. She took on duties and traveled a bit, although she always preferred to bring visitors to her, where she could show off her beloved home. After the Lady Cassandra stepped down, Nora took on the Guardian’s position, and the city continued to flourish. “You, my darling girl,” Vex whispered after her appointment gala, “have so much of your grandmother in you. You world-changer, you.”

Angie joined the Grey Hunt a year early, after having spent more of her life outside of the castle walls than in them. She came home from her first Hunt with two half-healing scars and a barely-tamed bobcat she called Beryl. Her father had a small panic attack, then built her more than a dozen specialized arrows - the ones her mother didn’t claim first, of course. Out there, in the wild, she and her mother found a peace, a speech built out of body language and eye motions, and much of the tension that simmered in even the healthiest mother-daughter relationship seeped away. The next Grand Mistress would need to wait her turn, but no doubt among the Hunt lived through that first year with Angie and Beryl.

Connie wanted, desperately, to leave Whitestone, to immerse himself in books and books and magic and more books, and although it wounded, his parents found him a path. The Alabaster Lyceum would almost certainly have squinted at a provincial lord’s son appearing in their teleportation circle with no warning. They would have done so even more had he then begun demanding to study the strangest magic they could offer, but when that son could list “de Rolo” among his many names, their hesitance evaporated. At his parents’ request, Connie came home every few weeks, and of his own volition, he spent some of his study time on understanding the properties of the ore his home exported. He would come back one of these days, Percy reassured Vex, once he was full.

Net never quite grew tall. She stayed, her whole life, not much taller than a gnome, and at first, her parents worried. But Auntie Pike reassured them that it wasn’t a malady, not a curse or an illness or anything of the sort. Net was just small. Those early years, though, Auntie Pike was around more often than not, and when Net came home one day lit with an inner glow, Percy half-cringed. “She wants to work at the temple,” Pike murmured. “A healer, I think, naturally good at it. Is that—“ Vex had interrupted, assurances atop assurances, whatever made Net happy, whatever she wanted. Percy nodded along, but it took a few years for it to feel true. He had no quarrel with the Everlight, but there was “no quarrel” and then there was “my daughter the cleric.”

* * *

They weren’t all together much, although Nora and Net lived very near the castle, and Angie was often on the near side of the Sierras at least. Connie could be reached with a step in a circle, and Freddie knew better than to stay out adventuring longer than a few months at a time. But slowly, slowly, the halls grew a little quieter, and Percy’s clock kept growing, and the Lady Vex passed on her mantle, and the Lady Cassandra passed away. Percy lasted some time longer, whether from deals made in his youth or his own stubbornness, and then the castle stood almost empty.

It could be a sad story, Vex knew, but it wasn’t. She had her bear and her friends, her glorious children out there making a difference, and her prayers. She had the Slayers’ Cake and the Whitestone Library, she had the Grey Hunt advisory, she had her bow and the Dawnfather’s blessing still. And sometimes, these days, just as she slipped off to sleep, she thought she heard a familiar chuckle, a soft voice calling her “Stubby.” All was well.


	2. whatever you feel, whatever it takes (freddie)

He met Zida first, first of the Star and first of his friends, and she shaped everything that was to come. She’d been the daughter of someone or other, some merchant, maybe a leatherworker, who’d fallen to the Briarwoods - a cold clench at the back of the neck to hear the name, always, although he’d never met one and never would. His parents could, sometimes, talk about those people without having to leave the room, but Zida had no such compunction. 

He’d been eight and a half then, his newest sister taking up all the air in the castle, when he’d slipped his guard and sauntered down to the Sun Tree. It was a festival, one of many: artists and artisans from all over Tal’Dorei hawking wares and drinking for much-reduced rates. He looked enough like his father, he knew, that no one from Whitestone would mistake him as anything but a de Rolo, and so he savored the days when strangers came. They didn’t know him from anyone, and he could do things a de Rolo mustn’t. 

Like, for example, pocket a striped red fruit he didn’t recognize and jauntily stroll away, just another well-dressed boy with nothing at all he hadn’t paid for. The seller hadn’t noticed, nor had the Pale Guard stationed around, but she had. He felt a presence waver up next to him, and glanced: a tiefling girl, taller than him, curled rams’ horns in feather-black hair, sharp chin, pointed teeth. 

“Thief,” she said quietly, pitched not to be overheard.

“Am not,” he’d replied. His heart had started to race, and only his mother’s lessons about breathing kept him from looking suspicious.

“Are too,” she’d responded, looked for all the world like a friend having a chat. She’d reached over and hooked her arm through his, casual and calm. He hadn’t felt her pick his pocket, and when she deposited him safely at the castle’s door, he was a stolen fruit and ten gold lighter, and he was in love.

The “in love” bit faded fairly quickly, as childhood crushes will, but the rest remained. Zida would show up sometimes when he was out and about, would laugh at him, tell him jokes and pick his pockets (returning anything she deemed boring), and when he was fourteen and she a few years older, he convinced her to come to dinner with his family.

The de Rolo castle anchored Whitestone, and Zida had, it transpired, half-forgotten Freddie was an actual de Rolo. All her life’s lessons about how to treat the ruling family made her quiet and a little clumsy, and Freddie fretted on her behalf as she stammered through a dinner with his parents and siblings. 

The next time she came to dinner, after he cajoled and argued and finally offered her a fine cloak he himself hated (blue might be a family color but it didn’t mean he had to like it), she was still stiff, but luckily the family had other guests as well. It was one thing, Freddie would come to learn, to have dinner with the de Rolo family, leaders of Whitestone, and an entirely other experience to dine with Percy and Vex of Vox Machina. Uncle Grog wore a ridiculous hat and ate the meat bowl he’d invented, Auntie Pike exuded the warmth and welcome she always had, Scanlan - never “uncle,” he claimed it made his skin itch - sang silly songs and flattered Auntie Pike until they all laughed. Uncle Tary dropped in halfway through, his newest contraption with him, and kissed the top of all their heads, Zida included, as he always did. Zida froze, then laughed, and nudged Freddie in the side with her sharp elbow, her gold eyes dancing in amusement. 

“I like him,” she said in Infernal. She’d been teaching him the past year or so, and Freddie prided himself on his reply.

“We all like you,” the plural there was a tricky one but he’d nailed it. None of the others at the table seemed to be listening, and he was almost certain that neither of his parents spoke Infernal, so he continued. “You’re welcome to stay, you know. Here, at the castle. It has to be more,” he stammered, looked for the word. “More comfortable than where you’re sleeping now.”

Zida wrinkled her nose. “No, little lordling,” and grinned. She knew how he hated that name. “I’m fine where I am. Won’t turn down a fine meal, but I’ve my own home.”

He’d nodded and swiped a piece of bread from her plate, and that had been that.

When he’d turned eighteen and joined the Flintlocks, she’d been there, laughing at him on the sidelines. His first exhibition, when he earned the gold star by a mere point and a half, she’d poked him in the side and pointed at the silver star winner. “We should buy him dinner.”

The young man she pointed to, human enough at a glance but with pointed teeth in his heavy jaw, was a bit older, a bit rougher. He’d shot well, not elegantly, but beautiful the way a well-balanced lever was beautiful, a near-perfect example of the form. Freddie agreed, and they cornered the young man together. Darrian didn’t need much convincing. He’d been a newly minted mercenary back in Marquet, but Captain Howarth had offered a better living here, and so he’d come. Freddie snorted, as he often did when people called his parent’s good friend Jarett by his formal title, then nodded. “You’ll do well here,” he had said, only half as full of himself as he could have been, would have been a few years before. 

The next dinners at the castle had Zida, a now-recurring guest, and Darrian, who stood head and shoulders above the rest, and over time they picked up a pretty male half-elf with long blond hair, Aemard, who’d charmed Darrian out of three gold before Zida’d caught on, who could charm the group into free lodging or out of a scrape as easy as breathing. They found a handsome dwarven girl with fiery red hair and beard, Almaria, whose warm heart and open smile made the Allhammer’s forge seem welcoming instead of scary. 

Freddie’s parents looked sidelong at his little troupe of friends - a thief, a soldier, a charlatan, a cleric - and smiled. He wondered, sometimes, if they worried, but they never said a word. Once in a while he’d catch his mother smiling sadly at Aemard, or he’d find Uncle Grog and Almaria in a good-natured arm wrestling match. It was nice, having friends. Nice in a different way than his family. Not better, just different. 

And then, at twenty, he joined the Pale Guard. Darrian did, too, of course, and Almaria took on a contract for weapons and armor repair. Aemard moved in with Darrian in his quarters, and Zida continued to live where she pleased and refuse any offers for space in the castle. 

Twenty-two, and Uncle Tary showed up with Uncle Lawrence and the newest, least murderous Doty, and brought along a young gnomish woman in long robes, and Freddie’s world dropped out from under him. Zida, lounged on her preferred bench in the foyer, had nearly fallen off of it laughing at his face.

The woman was Marquesian, dark eyes and skin, cut-glass cheekbones and devastatingly smart. Freddie watched her switch languages without even thinking, half a dozen in as many minutes, while she tried to introduce herself. Finally Uncle Tary’s pointed throat-clearing shook him out of it, and he stood up soldier-straight. 

Claudia - that was her name, and Freddie would have kept whispering it to himself reverently for hours had Zida not poked him in the ribs - was brilliant, had taught herself all those tongues and magic besides. Uncle Tary and Uncle Lawrence had brought her to Whitestone to see if Connie, visiting from school, might have books she’d want. He didn’t, but Freddie immediately offered to escort her to the Lyceum.

“We have a teleportation circle, dear,” his mother had said dryly, but Claudia had spun a story about loving overland travel, her dark eyes meeting Freddie’s with a laugh. He’d blushed, so easy to read, and heard Zida’s snicker from across the room.

And so the Six-Point Star was born. Freddie, with his fists and his sword, his fine manners and eye for tactics and coin to spare. Zida, with her quick fingers and quicker tongue, daggers at hand and an eye for weakness. Darrian, strong and steady and sure, and Aemard, beautiful and charming and wickedly persuasive. Almaria, hale and hearty and hard to hide from. And now, at last, the last twig in a roaring fire, Claudia, with magic dripping from her fingers and a mind like an arrowhead.

They headed out together, and never quite left company. Claudia kissed Freddie three weeks into their first journey, and his baffled joy spread over the camp. Darrian and Aemard, together in their tent, reminisced about their own first meeting. Almaria, on watch, sighed - she would never understand this particular drive, but at least they’d finally stop pining. And Zida, curled up in a tree, had laughed herself to sleep. 

Together they just…fit. They walked in the vague direction of the Lyceum for six months. Darrian looked imposing enough that they were rarely set upon, and when they were, any one of them could protect themselves just fine. They freed a small village from a gnoll infestation, they gathered herbs from a dangerous valley to help cure a plague, they laughed and drank and nursed wounds around many a campfire. The Alabaster Lyceum, once they finally arrived, offered Claudia a place, but she turned them down - the first offer in a century to be declined. They headed to Marquet next, where they stayed for near a year, then another long year of travel up to the Shattered Teeth. 

There, Darrian died, fell limp and empty-eyed in the middle of a battle, and Almaria lunged for him. The healing magic sparked from her hands, brought him back, but he had been well and truly dead for a moment, and it shook the whole Star. They went home to Whitestone, to eat and drink and sleep in finery for a bit. A few months in the city, and then they were off again with no particular destination in mind. They sought out a relic here or there, fought ever-more-frightening beasts, and sometimes Freddie would hear in his mind a message from his brother Connie, asking for a favor. They went home to Whitestone for festivals and for Freddie’s birthday each year, and to Marquet for post-mission relaxation. They died, most of them, at least once, although they never grew used to it. 

And then, after they’d traveled together to take out a clutch of young dragons on the Kraghammer border, Darrian died again. But this time there wasn’t a body to revive, or ashes to resurrect, and Aemard screamed across the plain of battle. Freddie ran to him, digging in a pouch for a potion, but it was too late. Would have been too late even if he’d been standing there. 

The Star, dimmer now, circled towards home again. Aemard disappeared halfway there. He’d taken first watch, and when Freddie woke up for his turn, all of the belongings and tent that Aemard and Darrian had borne were gone. Almaria sent him a message, but he didn’t respond - dead, perhaps, or simply not responding. The five of them argued for an hour about whether or not to go find him. Zida was the deciding vote.

“Give him the dignity of his choice,” she’d said, slurred really; too much blood loss and too much booze in recent days. “He’ll come back, he knows where we’re headed.”

The Six-Point Star staggered into Castle Whitestone, wounded and weary, sick of soul and body. Freddie would turn thirty-five in three months, and they were all tired. His father wasn’t home, was away charming some gunpowder merchant out of things they could make at home for half the price. His mother was away on a Hunt, and Angie with her. Nora and Auntie Cass were locked in delegations, and Connie wouldn’t be home for another month, and Net - well. Freddie hadn’t gone to see Net at her temple, not for some time, but he slid into soft sheets next to Claudia and thought, perhaps tomorrow. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Spit on a Stranger" by Pavement
> 
> >Honey I'm a prize and you're a catch  
> And we're a perfect match,  
> Like two bitter strangers,  
> And now I see the long,  
> The short of it and I can make it last,  
> I could spit on a stranger.


End file.
